Nine Worthies

The thirteenth century carving "Nine Good Heroes" (known as "Neun Gute Helden" in the original German) at City Hall in Cologne, Germany, is the earliest known representation of the Nine Worthies. From left to right are the three Christians: Charlemagne bearing an eagle upon his shield, King Arthur displaying three crowns, and Godfrey of Bouillon with a dog lying before him; then the three pagans: Julius Caesar, Hector, and Alexander the Great bearing a griffon upon his shield; and lastly the three Jews: David holding a sceptre, Joshua, and Judas Maccabeus.

The Nine Worthies are nine historical, scriptural, and legendary personages who personify the ideals of chivalry established in the Middle Ages, whose lives were deemed a valuable study for aspirants to chivalric status. All were commonly referred to as 'Princes', regardless of their historical titles. In French they are called Les Neuf Preux or "Nine Valiants",[1] giving a more specific idea of the moral virtues they exemplified: those of soldierly courage and generalship. In Italy they are i Nove Prodi.

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Statues of the Nine Worthies on the Schöne Brunnen (beautiful fountain) in Nuremberg (1385-1396). Visible on the fountain, l to r are: Judas Maccabeus, David (with harp), Julius Caesar, Alexander. The figure in the left foreground, St Mark, with his lion, is part of another group

David, in Livro do Armeiro-Mor (fl 1v), a Portuguese armorial from 1509. The book opens with ten full-page illustrations of the Nine Worthies and Bertrand du Guesclin.

Lucas van Leyden's depiction of the three Old Testament kings as exotic contemporaries, in an engraving of c. 1520 depicting the Worthies in three sections

The Three Good Pagans: Hector, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, from the woodcut series by Hans Burgkmair, 1519.

They were first described in the early fourteenth century, by Jacques de Longuyon in his Voeux du Paon (1312).[2] Their selection, as Johan Huizinga pointed out, betrays a close connection with the romance genre of chivalry. Neatly divided into a triad of triads, these men were considered to be paragons of chivalry within their particular traditions, whether Pagan, Jewish, or Christian. Longuyon's choices soon became a common theme in the literature and art of the Middle Ages and earned a permanent place in the popular consciousness. The medieval "craving for symmetry"[3] engendered female equivalents, the neuf preuses, who were sometimes added, though the women chosen varied. Eustache Deschamps selected "a group of rather bizarre heroines"[4] selected from fiction and history, among them Penthesilea, Tomyris, Semiramis. Literature and suites of tapestry featured the full complement of eighteen, whose allegorical figures preceded King Henry VI of England in his triumphal royal entry to Paris, 1431.[5] A "tenth worthy"[6] was added by Deschamps, in the figure of Bertrand du Guesclin, the Breton knight to whom France owed recovery from the battles of Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356). Francis I of France still occasionally paraded himself at court dressed in the "antique mode" to identify himself also as one of the Neuf Preux.[7]

As a group, the nine worthies represent all facets of the perfect chivalrous warrior. All, with the exception of Hector, are conquering heroes. (Despite Arthur's later downfall, historical and literary texts record his early conquests in Britain and on the Continent). Those not royal were presumed to come from knightly families. All lived in the pre-heraldic era, and attributed arms were invented for them, as in Lucas van Leyden's engraving. All brought glory and honor to their nations and were noted for their personal prowess in arms. As individuals, each displayed some outstanding quality of chivalry which made them exemplars of knighthood. That the nine individual figures were generally not distinguished, iconographically, with respect to relative antiquity or ethnicity, would suggest that the virtues that they manifest are to be understood as timeless and universal.

The Nine Worthies were also a popular subject for masques in Renaissance Europe. In William Shakespeare's play Love's Labour's Lost the comic characters attempt to stage such a masque, but it descends into chaos. The list of Worthies actually named in the play include two not on the original list, Hercules and Pompey the Great. Alexander, Judas Maccabaeus, and Hector also appear on stage before the show collapses into complete disorder. The worthies are also mentioned in Henry IV, Part 2 in which Doll Tearsheet is so impressed by Falstaff's bravery in fighting Ancient Pistol that she says he is "as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the Nine Worthies".[8]

Don Quixote evokes the Nine Worthies in Volume I, Chapter 5, telling a peasant (who is trying to get him to admit who he is) "I know that I may be not only those I have named, but all the Twelve Peers of France and even all the Nine Worthies, since my achievements surpass all that they have done all together and each of them on his own account".[9]

The Nine Worthies had not devolved to folk culture even in the seventeenth century, for a frieze of the Nine Worthies, contemporary with Shakespeare's comedy, was painted at the outset of the seventeenth century at North Mymms Place, Hertfordshire, an up-to-date house built by the Coningsby family, 1599.[10]

The Cloisters, in New York City, has important portions of an early 15th-century tapestry series illustrating the surviving five of the Nine Worthies: King Arthur, Joshua, David, Hector, and Julius Caesar.[11]

I Nove Prodi, a fresco by the Maestro del Castello della Manta, an anonymous master, painted c. 1420 in the sala baronale of the Castello della Manta, Saluzzo, Italy. The series also includes depictions of their female counterparts.

Montacute House has sculptures of the Nine Worthies spaced along the upper eastern façade on the exterior of the long gallery piers. These figures are dressed in Roman armour.

In the late fourteenth century, Lady Worthies began to accompany the Nine Worthies, though usually not individualized and shown as anonymous Amazon-styled warriors. In later years, nine of the "Most Illustrious Ladies of All Ages and Nations" were chosen from scripture, history and legend to be placed alongside their male counterparts, though the choices for the Lady Worthies were not usually standardized and often varied by region, author and artist.

A very fine set of Siennese fifteenth century panel paintings, attributed to the Master of the Griselda Legend and others, now incomplete and widely dispersed, showed male and female worthies - the remaining paintings were reunited in a 2007 exhibition at the National Gallery, London.[13]

The Christian trio of saints, all very popular in Germany at the time, are all women who had been married - Bridget became an abbess as a widow. In addition, like three of the male worthies, Elizabeth of Hungary was an ancestor of Burgkmair's patron Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, and Helena was a Roman Empress. Unlike the other two groups, who all face each other, apparently in conversation, these three all look down, and may illustrate the female virtue of silence.[15] Burgkmair's conception was not very widely followed.

Nine Worthies of London is a book by Richard Johnson, written in 1592, that borrows the theme from the Nine Worthies. The book is subtitled Explaining the Honourable Excise of Armes, the Vertues of the Valiant, and the Memorable Attempts of Magnanimous Minds; Pleasaunt for Gentlemen, not unseemely for Magistrates, and most profitable for Prentises, celebrated the rise of nine famous Londoners through society from the ranks of apprentices or commoners.